Stealing Ire
by Psyche17
Summary: Loki gets a new cellmate with a power and plan of her own. Set during the movie, so very AU. Loki/OC. One shot.


_Hello everyone! First off, it's been awhile since I've written any fanfics, but I'm so excited to have started again because I've missed writing so much. Please, please leave comments good or bad because they encourage me! Thanks in advance to every one who reads this! I hope you enjoy it!_

* * *

**Stealing Ire**

Loki stood passively in his cell, hands clasped behind his back, like a man who was exactly where he wanted to be. The cage might as well have been made of glass rather than the impenetrable shield originally built to contain a beast of greater stature. Loki had no intent to escape, yet. Though surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, he gave the impression he cared less about seeing and more about being seen.

The sound of a door sliding open announced Nick Fury's entrance into the chamber where Loki's cell was suspended in air. Three guards followed Fury, in their possession, a woman. She was dressed all in black and remained expressionless as they led her to Loki's cell.

"I've brought you company," Fury said, pushing the button that opened the cell door and motioning the woman inside. She acquiesced, but with a look as though she found the whole situation monotonous.

"What is this?" Loki asked, referring to the woman with distaste.

"Your new cellmate for the time being," Fury answered.

"Take it back. I don't want it in here."

"And I don't take orders from you." Fury nodded toward his guards, dismissing them.

"You should probably move _him_ somewhere else," the woman said. It was the first time she had spoken.

The boom of Loki's laughter filled the cell.

"He's irrelevant and distracting."

The laughter stopped suddenly when Loki's face turned cool and menacing. He glared at her, noticing for the first time that her wrists were bound.

"Someone has a real aptitude for provoking the wrong people," he said, clearly including himself as one of the wrong people.

The woman smiled. "No, they just fear me." She looked down at his own hands, which were free to move at his will. "Hm," she added with amusement.

Loki looked as though he were about to explode, but just then came another explosion through the door by which Fury had entered a moment ago. Tony Stark launched himself through the door and toward the cell, trailed by Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff.

"Fury, you bastard-asshole-son-of-a-bitch," Stark yelled.

Rogers put his hand on Stark's shoulder, but Stark immediately shrugged it away. "Get off me, Captain Amber Waves. This had better be some sick joke, Fury."

The look on Fury's face said otherwise. He sighed deeply, his eyes falling to the floor.

"Tony Stark?"

Stark took his eyes off Fury and looked inside the cell. A woman stared back at him blankly, waiting.

"Who are you?" asked Stark.

"I'm not important."

"Answer the question!"

"Solace."

"That's an emotion," interjected Rogers, not so helpfully.

"It's the best one." Solace smiled at him, almost sweetly.

"Can you all not take this tête à tête elsewhere?" Loki asked, visibly irked that he was no longer the only one plaguing the Avengers with chaos and confusion.

"Tony Stark," the woman said again. "I have a message for you."

"Tell me."

As Solace spoke, she looked through him, as though she were reading from a script she had memorized. "Tony Stark, members of S.H.I.E.L.D., I'm here with a message and a bargain. As you know, we have taken Pepper Potts into our custody—"

"Who's we?"

Solace ignored the question. "—so we are asking for a trade. Ms. Potts is unharmed, and she will be returned to you thus in exchange for one thing."

"What's that?"

"We want the Tesseract."

The corners of Loki's lips curled up toward his ears.

"Now I know this is a fucking joke," Stark said.

"This is an interesting turn of events," Rogers muttered to Natasha Romanoff who stood next to him with arms crossed, absorbing the scene.

"Who are you working for?" Fury asked Solace.

"I'm just a messenger."

"Whose?"

"I've delivered my message. There's nothing else to say. If you agree to the proposal, we may proceed to discuss terms."

"You're just the messenger, huh?" asked Tony Stark, unhinged and barely able to contain himself. He paced from side to side as he spoke. "That's your part? There must be something in it for you. What's your motivation? Is it money? Because the only thing I have more of than charm is money. I can make it very, very worthwhile for you to cooperate."

"Look at that," Loki said, his voice dripping with sadistic bemusement. "Look at how the man of iron begs before a little girl. How easily she put your virility in a vice."

Stark ignored him, his eyes locked with Solace's, refusing to release her.

"Here's the thing," came Fury's voice of reason. "We don't have the Tesseract."

Solace looked away from Stark for the first time, directing her attention toward Fury.

"It was stolen from us just before you showed up," Fury continued. He pointed at Loki. "By him."

For a moment, Solace's face looked perplexed as she mentally calculated the information that had just been given to her. Then, the lines in her face smoothed once more as she calmly replied, "Then I guess you'd better get it back."

This set Stark off once and for all. He slammed his fist against the cell window. "Tell us what we want to know!"

"I have delivered my message," Solace replied evenly.

Stark reeled around and made his way toward the cell's control panel.

"What are you doing?" Fury asked.

"Opening that door," Stark replied. "I'm going to kill her myself."

Solace closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply. Tony Stark stopped cold in his tracks. He stood with his shoulders hunched over, his body loose and slack.

Solace, who up until this point had been the epitome of composure, flung herself at the cell window with uncontrollable wrath. Her eyes were wild. She pounded her fists against the glass-like screen. "I gave you my message!" she screamed. "Now, leave!"

Tony Stark's face held nothing but confusion. He looked like he was trying to say something, but couldn't. All he could manage was to mutter, "Help. Let's go."

The atmosphere in the room quickly changed as each person tried to figure out what was happening. Fury took the first initiative. "Get him out of here, away from her," he ordered Rogers and Romanoff. They nodded and quickly took Stark by either arm. Fury followed close behind.

"By the way," Loki called after Fury, "I won't be needing those magazines after all."

* * *

"What the hell was that?" gasped Stark , finally able to catch his breath. They were outside the chamber now, the door closed behind them.

"You tell us," Rogers said.

"I don't know," Stark said. "It's like one second I was so angry—and the next I wasn't."

"Interesting," Fury said thoughtfully. "The girl clearly has a power that we need to ascertain."

"What about the Tesseract?" asked Rogers.

"That's out of our hands, unfortunately," Fury replied. "For now, we should figure out what we're dealing with. Natasha, we may need your interrogation skills."

"No," she said, "Not yet. Not until it's necessary. For now, the better interrogator is already in there with her. All we have to do is watch. And wait."

* * *

"You were wrong."

"Excuse me?"

"You were wrong," Loki repeated. "They don't fear you." He laughed. "You are a nuisance. You're like a pebble in their shoe. You're nothing."

"We'll see."

"I am the only one to fear. You, especially you, should fear me. You're nothing but a pathetic mortal. How quickly your life's grains of sand run out. I am a god and the reason you will fail. What will happen to you when you cannot deliver the Tesseract? I have it, I intend to use it, and when you die because of your incompetence, you will remember my face. And you will be afraid."

For once, Solace did not know how to respond. She looked into Loki's face. It glowed with triumph; he couldn't suppress it. Solace closed her eyes, and Loki's expression fell.

"The thing about victory," she said triumphantly, "is that it is so fleeting."

Loki scowled. "The next time you try a plan of this magnitude, you might want to ensure you select the correct target to use your leverage against."

"It's not my plan," Solace said. "But where is the Tesseract? You don't have it with you, obviously. How do you intend to use it?"

Loki made a clucking sound with his tongue. "Careful, your desperation is showing," he said. "Why do you want it?"

"I don't want it."

"Someone does, and you want them to have it."

"Not necessarily."

Loki cocked his head to the side, puzzled.

"Yes, someone wants it, and I am bound to help them get it," she said, "but I don't care about the Tesseract. I don't let others dictate what I want or what I feel."

"That's ironic coming from an Empath-soother."

"What did call me?"

"An Empath-soother. That's what you are, isn't it?"

"Oh. Yes. I—I guess that makes sense."

Loki smirked. "You didn't know. That's fantastic. Tell me, how would you describe what it is you are?"

"Talented."

He laughed. "That you are. But no—you're an Empath-soother. A soother because you can mollify even the most intense emotions, and empath, of course, comes from empathy because you absorb the feelings that you take away and experience them yourself."

* * *

"That makes perfect sense!" exclaimed Stark. "She took away my anger. That's why I was immobilized. It took me off-guard."

The Avengers team was gathered around the surveillance monitor, listening in on Loki and Solace's conversation.

"Alright," said Fury. "Now that we have this information, what do we do with it? Or, better, how do we use it to our advantage?"

Stark glanced at Bruce Banner. "I might have an idea."

* * *

Tony Stark stood outside the cell, looking in at Solace who faced him with her usual apathetic countenance. Loki leaned against a wall in the corner of the cell, observing.

"I know what you are," Stark said to Solace.

She did not reply.

"I want you to do it again," he said. "Take my emotion. But this time I want you to take the part of me that is miserable, despondent, crestfallen. I want you to experience this as deeply as I feel it right now. I don't presume to imagine you know anything about love or loyalty or even friendship, so I want you to dip into my soul for a minute, and once you appreciate how desperate I am to get back the most important thing in the world to me, we can start discussing the degree to which I will make your life even more miserable than mine is now. Or you can give me what I want. Actually, you are going to give me what I want, regardless."

Loki glanced from Stark to Solace and back again with pure amusement on his face.

"No," Solace replied.

"What did you say?"

"You can't make me use my powers on you. I'm the only one who can control them, and I only use them for my own advantage."

"I thought we might have to do this the hard way." Stark motioned to the guards who opened the cell door and, taking her by either arm, led Solace out. Stark followed them to the lab.

* * *

"So, Banner. That's your play?" said Natasha Romanoff.

"What?"

"Thank you for your cooperation."

Romanoff exited the room just as the guards returned with Solace. Loki stared down at her as she lay unconscious on the floor. Her face was twisted in pain. She began to stir, and then suddenly she awoke, gasping for breath. Loki quickly turned away and pretended he hadn't been watching her.

"So you're a god, is that right?"

The swiftness with which she had recovered surprised him. "That is correct."

"What are you a god of?"

"The stars, planets, the universe in its entirety."

"That's a lie."

Loki smiled. "Perhaps that's what I'm the god of."

"If you're a god, then why do you need a Tesseract?"

"Your mortal mind is too feeble to ever understand."

"It understands hubris just fine."

Loki smiled mischievously. "You know, I just might have to find a place for you in my new empire."

* * *

The next several hours followed the same pattern. The guards would come to the cell for Solace and drag her off to Stark's lab. Some time later, they would drag her back again, barely conscious, and deposit her on the cell floor. Every time Solace regained consciousness, she released a blood-curdling scream that must have been trapped inside her, waiting for her to awaken in order to escape.

Loki had watched this happen for the third time. The guards had flung Solace back into the cell twenty minutes ago, and finally she was beginning to rouse. It was the longest yet she had taken to recover.

"What precisely are they doing to you?" he asked once she had fully awakened.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't."

"Okay."

"But I'm curious."

Solace sighed. "They're trying to manipulate my powers against my will, filling me with drugs—"

"Why?"

"Because I won't cooperate."

"No. Think. Why would they want you to use your powers?"

Solace paused. "To make me feel guilty? To break me?"

Loki scoffed. "Humans are such conceited creatures. It's not about you!" He looked as though he had just stumbled across something and was about to express it, but he was interrupted when Stark and Rogers entered to retrieve their science experiment.

Solace was barely sitting up. She looked weak and exhausted.

"It's refreshing to see the Avengers stripped of their moral superiority for once," Loki said as the group approached the cell.

They pretended to ignore him, but he caught Rogers' eye. "This realm's history has never interested me, but I do seem to recall that civilizations here are often judged by how they treat their prisoners of war."

A look of uncertainty crossed Captain Steve Rogers' face.

* * *

"Fury? A word?" Steve Rogers entered the command center.

"What is it?" answered Fury.

"I don't like what's happening to the Empath-soother. I can't condone it."

"It's necessary."

"It's wrong."

"You don't think the government has ever experimented on people? Look at yourself."

"That was different. I consented. I volunteered!"

"Sometimes you have to initiate a draft."

"Look, you just don't treat people that way. You don't torture them; you don't make them do things against their will."

"Why don't you go have a conversation with Stark about consent and the treatment of Ms. Potts?"

Rogers furrowed his brow, trying to reconcile his conflicting thoughts. "I just don't think it's right."

"Perhaps not," admitted Fury. "What got you thinking this?"

"Just something Loki said—"

Fury sighed. "Of course. You see, that was your first mistake. Stop listening to gods with hankerings for world domination. He's using you. He knows our Achilles' heel is the Hulk's volatility. Now, we finally might have found a way to control his anger and—"

Rogers nodded reluctantly. "I get it," he said. "But I still don't know if I condone it."

"Honestly," Fury said, "I'm okay with that."

* * *

Loki paced around the cell, deep in thought. Something was different. He continued striding back and forth, hands clasped behind his back. Solace had been gone too long this time.

Finally, the door opened and once again Solace was thrown back into the cell. But even this was different. For one, the entire Avengers team including Loki's own brother Thor accompanied the guards, watching Solace's seemingly lifeless body with uncertainty.

"The tranquilizer should wear off in about a half hour," said Stark.

"I still can't believe you didn't tell me this is what you were working on," Banner said. His face was filled with guilt and shame.

Loki looked to Thor for answers. "Be careful, Brother," said Thor.

"It'll be fine!" Stark assured them. "She absorbs emotion, not power."

"Anger is power," Banner said.

With that, the team exited, leaving Loki alone with the unconscious woman. He noticed a fresh wound on her face. What had happened?

Thirty minutes passed, but still Solace had not awakened. Loki moved close to her, curious, inspecting her body. He was about to place his hand on her shoulder when suddenly her breathing changed. She was regaining consciousness.

It happened quickly. Suddenly she jerked up. Her eyes flared, and her skin seemed to acquire a slight green tint. Then she ripped the bindings off her wrists. This time it wasn't a scream she let out, but a roar. Loki immediately ascertained what had happened. The Hulk had had an incident, and Solace had absorbed it.

She was on her feet now. Unable to control the rage that surged through her veins, she lunged at the window, striking her fists against it until she drew blood. Loki tried to pull her away, but his action only served to direct her attack at himself. She swung at his face, but missed. Her fists made contact with his chest, and she pounded on it with all her might.

Loki tried to restrain her, but couldn't. She was too wild. An idea occurred to him, however, and he focused his energy on his own body. He tapped into his Frost Giant side and slowly cooled his body temperature. In the meantime, he wrapped his arms tightly around Solace, as his entire form turned icy blue. His plan worked, shocking Solace into submission. Loki felt her relax and slump into his chest as the rage left her body. He then allowed his body temperature to rise back to normal.

Perhaps because she was shivering or perhaps because she did not immediately recoil from him or perhaps because he didn't want her to, Loki kept his arms around her even though the incident had ended moments before. When she finally looked up at him, her eyes held gratitude. Loki, however, looked uncomfortable.

"Why would you do that?" she whispered.

She received no answer.

Still, she did not move away. Instead, she let her palm rest gently on his chest and closed her eyes. Immediately, Loki felt his world change. Jealousy, betrayal, rejection—all were sucked out of him, leaving behind a huge void at his core. His expression became peaceful for the first time in ages.

Solace began to stumble away from him, her eyes brimming with tears. She turned, as though unable to face him, and crumbled into a ball in the corner of the cell, tucking her knees up to her chest. Sobs wracked her body, and she found it difficult to breathe.

Loki looked down at Solace with what appeared to be genuine concern. "Stop it," he said. "Give it back."

Solace's weeping continued. It was like she couldn't let go.

"Stop. You don't have to do this."

She took in a deep breath, and her words were barely audible. "But—you—don't deserve it."

"You don't know that. Now give it back."

Little by little, Loki felt the old, familiar feelings reenter his soul, weighing it down. Yet, somehow, it did not seem quite as heavy as before.

For a moment, Loki stared down at Solace with uncertainty, but then, as if gathering his strength, he sat down beside her. Solace felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She turned to him. "Did it help?"

"Yes."

"Okay." She paused. "Good."

"I'm going to escape here soon."

"Oh."

"Any moment, an attack is going to begin on this aircraft."

"Oh."

"I'm going to take you with me."

"Because you want me to use my power on you again?"

"Because I'm going to protect you from what happens next."

"I don't need protection from anybody."

"What do you think is going to be done with you when all this is over? Do you honestly think this ends well for you in any scenario? Where is your sense of mortality?"

"You don't want to rule mortals. You never did. I've worked for people like you long enough to know how high you set your sights. That's also why you always fail. I suspect that when this is over, S.H.I.E.L.D. will have the Tesseract in their possession once again. I have a bargain to work out, and I have to stay until it's done."

"You think they're going to defeat me?"

"I think you might want them to."

A crashing sound was heard in the distance. The fight had begun, and Loki's moment to escape had almost arrived.

"Soon," Loki said, "I am going to rule all of this. Everyone, including whoever it is you're working for, is going to kneel down before me. I can make you a queen."

"When you begin your plan—your real plan—I'll be there."

"No, you will come with me now."

"No."

They had reached a stalemate. Loki's time was almost up. His eyes grew large and glassy as he looked at Solace. "Why does everyone always abandon me? I am always alone."

Solace looked at the desperation in his eyes, and found that he had pulled her toward him, unwilling to release her from his grasp. She kissed him and kept kissing him until she had stolen every last molecule of his longing for her from his soul. It was strong, and enveloped her in warmth.

"You're the one who's leaving me," she said.

He knew what she had done, and his eyes were filled with pain. She continued to absorb any emotion that would make him want to stay or would try to convince her to go. When the time to escape had come and she had run off in another direction, he did not follow her.

* * *

Hours later, when the fighting was over, Stark returned to his lab to find Solace waiting for him in his chair.

"Can you reverse a tracking signal?" she asked.

"Of course I can," Stark replied. "Why would I want to?"

"I have a tracker inside me. It allows my boss to know my location at all times, even in this hidden aircraft. If you reverse it, you'll know his whereabouts—and that of Ms. Potts'."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't have to use my powers to feel empathy, Mr. Stark. You were wrong when you said I don't know anything about loyalty or love. I do—or I'm starting to, anyway."

"Bullshit. Why are you doing this?"

"I also want you to take out the tracker. When they find out I've betrayed them, I don't want them to be able to come after me."

"Who is 'they'?"

"Honestly?"

"That would be refreshing."

"I don't actually know—it's better that way, isn't it? I always do it this way—better to be able to answer as few questions as possible. Well, better for the clients."

"So you don't know why they want the Tesseract."

"Why would anyone want a Tesseract? Power."

Stark nodded. "Alright, you have a deal."

"Also, Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful. The man you'll be facing? He has abilities."

"They always do."

* * *

The battle over New York City had ended, and Loki was once again captured. Thor led him through the street, his wrists bound and a muzzle on his jaw. They were returning to Asgard.

In the distance, Loki noticed a small figure dressed in black. His eyes smiled in her direction.

"Now," he thought, and set his plan into motion.

* * *

_Sorry for the lack of closure...you can use your imagination to know what happens next. :) Thanks again for reading & please review!_


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